


Maut Tai He

by AkelaKela



Series: Bollywood One-Shots [4]
Category: Bollywood Movies, Rangoon (2017)
Genre: Bollywood, Bollywood One Shot, Bollywood One Shots, F/M, INA - Freeform, Indian National Army, Rangoon (2017) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2018-12-30 12:10:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12108429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkelaKela/pseuds/AkelaKela
Summary: Nawab Malik, Julia and Rustom Billimoria.





	Maut Tai He

**Author's Note:**

> I liked this film and a few ideas have been knocking around in my head for quite a while so I finally wrote this out.

Nawab Malik knew that it could never last. What he and Julia had. Either Julia would go back to Rusi in guilt or leave both of them altogether.  
But he loved her so much that it didn't matter. 

He'd come to hold his breath for the next smile that would spread her face. To cherish the moments that they stole away from the world. Moments of gentle touch, of losing themselves in each other. Moments when nothing else mattered but him and her and the quiet world around them. Moments when the war, the death, the misery of their lives fell away and Nawab Malik might just think _'This. This is love.'_

 _'Slimy bastard.'_ He thought, the first time he heard the Major-General address a crowd. His badly accented Hindi a smarmy effort to come across as someone that the could trust. He'd dress in the clothes of the people he secretly thought savages, sing and dance with them as though he didn't think them lesser than himself because of their golden skin, dark hair and eyes.

Here the Captain would have to feign subservience as a Jamadaar, as a mere Indian. As a man who accepted the rank of warm brown eyes and skin instead of cold blue and white. He'd read plenty of poems in school, both in English and Hindi. He'd enjoyed the words, admired those who could twist them into tales and raw emotion where he could not. But where words could wound the same places they soothed.

_Take up the White Man's burden—_

_Send forth the best ye breed—_

_Go send your sons to exile_

_To serve your captives' need_

_To wait in heavy harness_

_On fluttered folk and wild—_

_Your new-caught, sullen peoples,_

_Half devil and half child._

He didn't know why the poem hit him as hard as it did. He'd always known his place, subconsciously if not consciously. He'd wished for blue eyes and lighter skin like everyone else.

And he'd served in the army fighting for his own slavery.

So, when the doors of the Japanese jail cell swung open and he was given a choice, it wasn't a difficult one. He could rot away and die tortured to have his corpse thrown in a mass grave or he could be released to slip back to the British as a spy.

At first, the INA was merely an escape from the horrors and torture of a Japanese POW camp. It was just a way out.

But slowly it began to mean more. 

It became a dream. A dream he dreamed of an India who's people were longer ruled, no longer subjugated. An India where he could be more than a lowly Jamadaar serving the _angrez_. Where he could truly be Captain Nawab Malik. He saw an India who's children wouldn't starve to fill stockpiles across the the seven seas.

 

Zulfi was a man. A dreamer. A dreamer who's dreams were woven into the same fabric as Malik's were. But to Major Williams, he was barely even that. He was a mere Indian, born to live under the boots of a white man. 

So he was killed.

He died surrounded by many, but he had been utterly alone. He'd had only his dreams to take him into the afterlife and a prayer murmured by his few comrades when no was there to hear.

So Malik buried him, his and Julia's hands the only ones laying him to rest under the cover of the driving rain hiding their tears and the night masking their disobedience. 

"Apni jaan se qeemti kuch hai kiya?" 

 _"Is there anything more precious than one's own life?"_ Julia murmured, her voice brittle. 

"Hai." 

 _"There is."_ He replied, his voice just loud enough for her to hear.  "Woh, jo jiske liye maara jaa sake."

_"That, for which one's life can be sacrificed."_

 

Mema had sacrificed. She'd risked everything for it. 

And her child, another innocent child of the motherland was to be sacrificed for it. 

She would not reveal him; of that he was certain. 

As she knelt in the dust under the flagpole, under the British flag, Malik couldn't stop himself. He couldn't let her sacrifice be trampled upon. He couldn't let her child die.

So he opened his mouth. And he sang. He sang the words that had soothed him, begun to comfort him. The words woven into his dreams. The words that he could almost touch.

 _Subh sukh chain ki barkha barse,_ _Bharat bhaag hai jaaga._

The crowd parted before him, everyone searching for the source of his voice. He stepped forward. There was no going back now.

 _Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat, Maratha,_ _Dravid, Utkal, Banga,_

They stepped away from him, eyes widening, jaws dropping. He took two, three steps forward until he was standing before the General.

He laughed, revelling in the irony of the scene before him. Turning, he waved his hands at the orchestra. The began to play.

 _Chanchal sagar, Vindhya, Himalaya,_ _Neela Jamuna, Ganga._ _  
_

_Tere nit gun gaayen,_ _Tujhse jivan paayen,_

Mema stood, her head raised. She looked into his eyes, gratitude and anguish swimming in them. His voice was gentle as he looked back, wanting her to know that it was okay. That they were not alone.

He'd thought that he would be afraid if he were ever caught. At least a little bit. But he wasn't. He was angry. 

_Har tan paaye asha._

His voice was gentle, one of a guardian angel.

Malik thought that would be afraid if he was ever caught. But he wasn't.

 _Suraj ban kar jag par chamke,_ _Bharat naam subhaga,_

He was angry. And if this was the only chance he got to defy the General, to defy the British, he would take it. He locked eyes with the General.

Julia watched, numb with shock as he the anthem came to a close.

He sang his anger, his frustration, his pain and his loyalty, oblivious to the pistol levelled with the back of his head.

 _Jai Ho! Jai Ho! Jai Ho!_ _Jai, Jai, Jai, Jai Ho!_

"Jai Hind!" General Harding saluted him mockingly. He nodded and Malik heard the shot.

Mema lay dead in the dirt. Something broke inside him when her son began to sob.

And he lunged at Williams, screaming.

 

"Apni jaan se qeemti kuch hai kiya?" 

 _"Is there anything more precious than one's own life?"_ Julia had murmured, her voice brittle. 

"Hai." 

 _"There is."_ He'd replied, his voice just loud enough for her to hear.  "Woh, jo jiske liye maara jaa sake."

_"That, for which one's life can be sacrificed."_

_'She can never understand'_ , he'd thought as she went quiet. But she could and did. Malik would never know whether she'd believed in him or in his dreams or both. He wasn't sure it mattered. 

He stared across the empty expanse between them, his eyes fixed on hers.

"Meri maut tai he!" 

 _"My death has been decided!"_ He declared loudly. he'd hoped that she'd find some comfort in those words, that she'd run while there was still time, that she'd do what he couldn't.

"Leikin aaj tum zinda ho!" 

 _"But you're alive today!"_ She yelled back, her voice echoing around the canyon. And he knew that there were gathering in her eyes, mirroring his. Like every dreamer, every lover, she wouldn't let go of the dream that she'd clung to so tightly, that she'd just begun to live. A tear fell from his eye, hot against the grimy skin of his face. 

So he stood, his shaking legs bracing against the swaying bridge. He took one step, the another, his eyes still locked with hers.

This was more important to him than him. It was more valuable than his life, than his will to live. Than his dreams.

He let everything fall away, ignored the shouts from behindhim, ignoring the fear in his heart. He stiffened, expecting the shots to tear into him at any moment. He kept walking, waiting for them to shoot. Julia hadn't moved, her eyes wide in fear. She knew what he was doing.

And so did Major-General Harding.

There was a blast and a bullet ripped through his back. He staggered, dropping to his knees. Julia bolted.

"Julia **JAO**!"

 _"Julia **GO**!"_ He screamed after her, heaving himself to his feet. A shot cut through his spine and he tipped back, bullets stitching themselves across his body. If she was to finish what he had started, he could not be alive to see it.

He saw her nearing the Japanese side just before he hit the flimsy wooden railing of the rope bridge and went over. 

The world began to blur and disappear as he fell. Time stretched and warped. Images of his childhood, of his friends. And of Julia. Of their stolen moments of happiness, of her smile, her laugh, her kiss. He saw India, his dream. A free India where children played unhampered under the wide blue sky, where men and women were free to love and live.

He was dead before his body hit it's watery grave.

And Julia was alone. 

She ran, knowing that the bridge was burning behind her with each leap she took.

Until it started to burn in front of her too. 

The missile hit the woven suspension bridge mere feet away from her and she and Rusi, in hot pursuit were thrown back. The bridge exploded in a ball of orange fire, patches of the wooden lattice burning away in seconds. 

Julia's eyes watered and smoke was stinging her lungs. She coughed, crawling to the sword, mercifully still tangled in the ropes of the ruined bridge.

The bridge collapsed as she crawled and she was left clinging to the sooty suspension cables. Rusi was panicking; yelling for her to turn back.

But she couldn't.

He could never understand.

So she grabbed the sword and swung down, hanging by one arm from a beam.

It wouldn't take long for her shoulder to give out. The beam was burning away beneath her fingers, buckling under her grip. It wouldn't be long before she joined Nawab Malik below.

So when Rusi Billimoria caught her with his right arm she hung on. He reached out his other hand for her to hold. She didn't take it.

"Kiya chahti ho tum?"

 _"What do you want?"_ He breathed.

"Jo main chahti hoon, kar paoge?"

 _"Can you do what I want?"_ She begged.

"Tum kaho to." 

 _"Just say the word."_ The tears in his eyes weren't from the smoke billowing around them. Julia knew. Her own eyes were filling with tears.

Rusi hadn't been Malik. He hadn't been the one; he hadn't been perfect. But he had been there for her in some way when no one else had. She couldn't have imagined her life without him.

Now he'd have to imagine his without her.

She raised the sword up. 

"Isse le jao ge? Iski manzil tak?"

 _"Will you take this? To where it needs to go?"_ She groaned, her legs kicking in thin air. Her shoulder was cramping painfully. It felt like she was wrenching it from it's socket.

He nodded, taking it gently from her bone-crushing grasp. She hung in the balance, the fingers wrapped around his prosthesis going numb. She swung her other hand up, clenching the wooden arm. He reached his left hand out to her.

"Main tumhare bina jee nahi sakta."

 _"I can't live without you."_ He hand closed over her wrist, ready to pull her to safety. Silently begging her not to go.

So she told him. She had to tell him the truth.

"Main to uske saath mar chuki hoon."

 _"I died with him."_ Julia felt him grip her arm tighter. He knew what she was going to do. She could see it in his eyes. 

"Bloody hell!" She grinned a tearful, bloody grin and let go. 

Rusi could only watch. Her arms were spread out as she fell, almost as though she were embracing the spirit of someone he couldn't see. He'd never seen her smile like, so openly. So freely.

Her body hit the water far below, a white plume rising up before she sank.

Rusi squeezed his eyes shut too late, the breath knocked out of him. His head dropped forward and tears inched out under his lashes and fell down after her. 

He could hear the army coming up behind him. Lifting the weapon, he rose. His back was turned to Major Williams when he said:

"I'm so sorry Mr. Billimoria." And Rusi could hear the lies in his words. As fine and fancy and English-speaking as he got, he didn't matter to them. Nawab Malik hadn't. Julia hadn't. And neither did he.

He turned.

"Hamari talwar."

 _"Our sword."_ He stretched his hand out expectantly, expecting Rustom to come to do as he asked.

But he couldn't. He could still see Julia smiling as she dropped into the river, still see the joy in her eyes. He could see her assured faith that he would do as he asked.

So he stalked back towards Williams on the groaning bridge. The man raised his eyebrows, expecting Rustom to come to heel. To obey as he had all his life, no better than a dog.

He glanced down at the decorated sheath, the history locked in the blade hidden beneath. 

And he placed it in Williams' outstretchrd, imperious hand. And when the sheath was in his grip, he drew the blade out, the sound of the steel coming free sweeter than Julia's smile.

Williams face didn't have long to twist into a look of absolute shock before Rusi slashed his chest open. Blood sprayed out and he felt the blade cut into bone. He sagged against the cables, limp and lifeless and Rusi attacked the other two soldiers. One fired, missing him by mere inches. He ran the sword through his stomach and the soldier behind fired, the bullet finding it's mark between his comrade's shoulders instead of in Rusi's face. He thrust a knee into the stab wound, throwing both of them back.

They fell through the disintegrating bridge beneath their feet to reveal General Harding.

He raised his pistol, a cold, arrogant look on his face. The same expression that peeked through his thin mask of jovial cordiality at every dinner, meeting and trial.

The two men stayed that way for a few long moments, their gazes locked. 

The General stared him down with the look of someone who was glaring at a biting insect.

"Hum ko unse wafa ki hai umeed."

 _"We wish for loyalty from those-"_ He spat. The last insult he would ever utter. The last words that would ever cross his lips.

For when he pulled the trigger, the pistol in his hand only clicked. All of his bullets had been spent on Nawab Malik. 

So Rustom Billimoria finished for him.

"Jo nahi jaante wafa kiya hai."

 _"Who know not what loyalty is."_  He replied, feeling the burning, acid hatred fill his heat completely once and for all for the selfish man in front of him. The rye irony of the situation had long dawned on him.

Here, facing each other, the same words on their lips, meant for each other. Each though the other wrong. Cruel. Disloyal.

But none of that mattered, Rusi thought. And he lunged, severing the neck of Major-General David Harding in one clean slash. 

His head fell to the flowing river below, a messenger to the two lying beneath and Rusi hoped that they would know. That it had been done. That their mission was complete. That they could now rest.

So it was him. Him who had hated Nawab Malik with all his soul, he who could have destroyed Julia for her disloyalty. He who had rubbed shoulders with the British all his life, who had been a slave to their image.

It was he who carried the ancient weapon across the ruined bridge. It was he who carried their dreams across the water. 

It was he laid their souls to rest. Together.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Idk how good this is, but I have to write out my ideas, otherwise they drive me crazy so here you go. I hope you enjoy this!


End file.
